The May '05 issue of WWII History Magazine carries an article of several pages by Robert Barr Smith in its "Top Secret" section labelled: "During a clandestine raid, the Calcutta Light Horse silenced a German transmitter in the neutral harbor of Marmagoa."

This tells about Col. W.H. Grice commanding a small group of 20 British members of a (at this time) primarily ceremonial military group in India whose average age was 40. They undertook a hazardous mission in a 30-year-old Glasgow-built gondola dredging barge named "Phoebe" under a home-made "Jolly Roger" flag to silence a powerful secret radio transmitter on the German freighter "Ehrenfels," interned in Marmagoa, Portuguese Goa (on India's western coast). The "Ehrenfels" was cited as broadcasting information on allied shipping to U-181 and others.

The "Phoebe" succeeded in sailing from India's Hoogly River to Goa, destroying the transmitter, sinking the "Ehrenfels," and causing the 3 other interned freighters(the "Braunfels," "Drachenfels," and the Italian "Anfora")to be scuttled by their own crews.

The "Phoebe" then returned to India, and Allied losses to U-boats in the vicinity markedly dropped.

Although no mention of the motion picture is made in the article, it certainly appears that this incident must have been the basis for the film starring David Niven and titled "The Sea Wolves." Until I read this article I had believed the story was purely fictional.

The article explores even more interesting aspects of this adventure, and the film (available on DVD) always struck me as a great "armchair-warrior's" fantasy of adventurous wish-fulfillment.